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 Felix Baumgartner sometimes jokingly referred to the person launching satellites. The joke is partly true: of course, the watchmaker has a very indirect relation to the cosmos as such, but his creations make fans remember the brand Urwerk Soviet satellite and space characters in the saga "Star Wars". However, the recognition came to him not at once.
Now famous for its innovative ideas, the Swiss watchmaker Felix Baumgartner was born in Schaffhausen in 1975 at the age of sixteen, he was able to act in a very prestigious school in Solothurn. Four years later, becoming already a graduate, Baumgartner decides to grinding of acquired skills, which is sent to Geneva. This was the beginning of his truly dizzying career.
By the way, opportunities to gain experience in Baumgartner was enough, because it belongs to the fourth generation in his family's watch. In particular, his father devoted himself to the restoration of watches.
"Their house was full," - says Baumgartner, and then jokingly complains about the incessant ticking on all sides that accompanied his entire childhood.
A distinctive feature of career Baumgartner called independence. Indeed, he never did to anyone on the job, but it did the orders for such companies as Patek Philippe, Vasheron Constantin, Sven Andersen. I must say that the last brand and principles of the Geneva chapter Baumgartner career. He saw a newspaper ad is already very famous at that time Kabinote (owner of watch brands) Sven Andersen, who was looking for young talented watchmakers with fresh ideas. It sounded like this: "If you want to be independent, it's time to do it!" This approach is well suited Baumgartner, so the young man hurried to the interview. As a result, he worked with Andersen for two and a half years by making the moving parts of the figures for erotic scenes on the dials. This collection of Andersen's watches and today enjoys great popularity. Such cooperation has been a push in the career of Baumgartner's another reason, which helped him to join the watch-long Academy independent creators. This organization appeared in 1985, today there are 28 people, and Sven Andersen was just one of its founders. Baumgartner was one of them in 1999, and the event was already directly connected to the watch Urwerk.
Even earlier, in 1995, Baumgartner mentioned in a conversation with his elder brother Thomas (incidentally, also a watchmaker) that would be nice to create their own brand of watches. But then it was more of a joke. The turning point in the career of Felix Baumgartner can be called the beginning of his collaboration with artist Martin Fry. In the late 90's no one in the long run did not take young people seriously. On the contrary, their ideas seemed outrageous, if not - insane. However, to follow the beaten paths Baumgartner was not going to. One reason is that while working in Geneva he had seen remarkable examples of watches with various complications, immersing it in a state of depression.
"I was a midget in comparison with those for watchers" - explains Baumgartner.
Indeed, in the manufacture of watches do not fundamentally changed over the past 150 years. Considering the improved movements, resting on the shelves of museums, Baumgartner was close to going mad. It seemed to him that his future as a watchmaker has in the past.
Fry's value proposition was to Baumgartner's just the ability to stop beating on the classic complications and to devote himself to creating a new way to display the time. In this respect, were a new Urwerk watch the breath. Fry admitted that he sometimes even had to jump Baumgartner when he dreaming, too divorced from reality, fulfilling their dreams. Many of the already stunning looks Urwerk. However, according to Baumgartner, even his father, who has worked all his life with the old watch, the last few years has only Urwerk, although originally designed Frye threw him into a state of shock.
The independent person is independent in all things. Today the company manufactures Urwerk only 200 pieces of watches per year. This policy has remained unchanged even in the wake of the crisis. Baumgartner claims that would never invent clever marketing moves to maximize profits, because Urwerk - not the mainstream, not just another trendy thing to sell. And on any proposal to enter into any of the big companies, he said no - do not want to control. In general, in any case for such uniques as Felix Baumgartner, the development of watchmaking innovation and invention always takes precedence over the commercial component of their activities.
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